May We Be Forgiven

to get people who will buy other things in the store. Milk, for example, is a common loss leader,” I say.
    “Move,” Brad says. “Take your act over to the A& P. I’ll help you. …” He picks up the edge of the table, and the carrier starts to slide.
    I grab the carrier. “Take your hands off my table or I will call the police, and then corporate pet whatever, and have your dumb ass fired.”
    “I’m a witness,” an old woman says. “I will testify.”
    “It was an accident,” Brad says, and I sort of believe him.
    “Tell it to the judge,” the old woman says as she helps me carry the table closer to the A& P.
    “Do you want a kitten?” I ask her.
    “Absolutely not,” she says. “I dislike pets almost as much as I dislike people. My husband says I should only shop online—that the world is a better place with me safe at home. He thinks I’m bad.” She shrugs. “I think he’s worse.”
    “How long have you been married?” I ask, laying out my flyers and supplies.
    “Since the beginning of time,” she says, and heads off.
    An unseasonably overdressed young woman in a heavy coat and scarf, with multiple bags of groceries hanging from both arms, approaches and puts her bags down.
    “Can I hold one?” she asks.
    I reach into the carrier and take out the closest kitten and hand it to her. The woman puts the kitten up to her face—rubbing its body over her cheeks, her nose, her mouth. “Yum-yum-yum,” she says, making lip-smacking sounds. The kitten looks stressed. “So fragile,” she says, “like a baby bird.”
    I reach for the kitten. “Let’s keep it in the box; you can pet it there.”
    She dutifully follows directions and puts the kitten in the box, then asks if she can try another one. I put the first one away and take another out.
    “Do you have any pets?” I ask the woman.
    “No,” she says. “No pets. Pets are against the rules.”
    “Aggie,” a woman calls, spotting her from a distance. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere. Remember we said we’d meet in the produce section? And whose groceries have you got?”
    “Mine,” Agatha says, putting the second kitten down.
    “Where did you get the money to buy all that?”
    “My parents sent it to me.”
    “I think they meant for you to use a little bit each week, not spend it all at once.”
    Agatha shrugs. She doesn’t seem to mind. “The man has kitties,” Agatha says. “They taste good.”
    “That’s nice,” the woman, who is clearly younger than Agatha, says. “Now, come along, and let’s catch up with the others.” I track Agatha with my eye, watching as she joins the others and, hand in hand, they walk across the parking lot like a twisted rope of Arbus imagery.
    “Are the kittens returnable?”
    “Pardon?” Someone is standing in front of me. Her enormous purse, the size of a lawn-and-leaf bag, is blocking my view.
    “If I take one and am not happy, can I bring it back?” she asks.
    “Not happy in what way?”
    “Like, if our dog, or cat, or my husband, or the kids don’t like it—can I bring it back?”
    “Sounds like you’ve got a full house,” I say.
    She nods. “I love a new baby.”
    I don’t like her; I don’t like how she’s just planted herself in front of me; I am anxious for her to leave. “Why don’t you think on it while you do your shopping, and then you can come back and see me? I’ll be here for a while.”
    The A& P and surrounding shopping mall is a whole other world. Conspicuously absent are men between twenty-five and sixty, and there is an abundance of older couples, women with babies and toddlers, and the straggling unemployed shopping the sale flyer. A woman with twins approaches.
    “Can we get a kitty?” the little girl asks.
    “Can we?” the boy seconds.
    The children are fascinated and stare into the cat carrier.
    “How many are in there?” the boy asks.
    “Five,” I say.
    “They have enough,” the girl tells her mother.
    “What will your father say?”
    “He’s never home anyway,” the boy says.
    “Maybe we don’t have to tell him,” the girl says. “We can just keep them in our room.”
    I put two kittens in the box, so they can each play with one.
    “Let me check with Daddy,” the mother says as she uses her long nails to peck out a text. Seconds later she gets a reply—which she holds up for me to read. It says, “Use your best judgment.” “I think it’s an automated response,” the mother says. “He’s got a